


The Books of Jericho

by laniew1



Category: Actor RPF, Panic At The Disco, Supernatural RPF, Young Veins
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-09-02
Updated: 2011-09-02
Packaged: 2017-10-23 08:47:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/248429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laniew1/pseuds/laniew1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are strange things going on. Men in odd uniforms standing behind men and women in positions of power lead to the discovery of nine Operations Teams, the fact that we're not alone and the re-appearance of a young man that looks exactly like a long missing Ryan Ross.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Books of Jericho

**The Books Of Jericho: Fractured**

He finds out that Ryan is missing on a Friday, he’s actually been missing since Sunday the police later determine, but Friday is the day that Greenwald goes back to the house to apologize for a fight they’d had and finds the house in complete disarray.

Greenwald calls Z and then the cops, in that order.

Spencer finds out only because the police show up on his doorstep that day to ask him questions about the last time he’d spoken to Ryan (about three months prior) and the last time that he’d actually seen him (a little over four).

Spencer’s of no help and he’s unsure of what he’s supposed to feel.

Fear, sadness, remorse?

He’s not sure.

He packs Brendon in the car and they go over to Ryan’s anyway and he doesn’t know why, can’t put into words why he needs to go there, to see for himself that Ryan is missing and that this isn’t a game that he’s playing.

Greenwald and Z are huddled together on the front steps; Spencer tries not to be angry that these are the people that replaced him.

That they were more important to Ryan then Spencer and Brendon and the band that they’d created.

It’s really hard, especially as Greenwald sneers at him and Z doesn’t say anything, just looks at him from Greenwald’s side and though her face doesn’t change her eyes say she’s not happy to see either of them and doesn’t believe they have any right to be there.

The cops clear the house, and a missing person report is filed for one George Ryan Ross the III. Greenwald and Z go into the house as the police cars; marked and unmarked are leaving and Spencer follows, Brendon trailing behind him unhappily.

The living room is where the worst of the damage is and Spencer has seen fights, has been to Ryan’s house when they were kids and seen dents in the wall where his dad had tossed him into them, furniture broken from Ryan’s body falling into them.

Something bad happened in this house.

Spencer makes a sound and he’s still not sure what he’s supposed to be feeling. He doesn’t even really consider Ryan a friend anymore.

But fear is right there at the top of the list.

*

The Private Investigator that had been hired used to call once a week, that was when they’d still been filled with hope. When everyone had thought that Ryan would be found in some little tiny Amish community where no one had the internet or TV and didn’t realize that he was missing and people were looking for him.

Now the PI calls once a month, almost always on Tuesday. He never has any news, never any information other then what they already know.

Which is nothing, which is actually _less_ then nothing.

Spencer thinks they should have long since given up, that pouring money into a fruitless search is a _waste_ of money.

In his darkest moments he thinks that maybe they _should_ just give up the search, because weeks have turned into months have turned into years and the knowledge that something _bad_ had happened in Ryan’s house is always in the back of his mind and there’s always been better then good chance that Ryan is actually _dead_ and they just haven’t found the body yet.

So sometimes, when he can’t handle another call where the PI tells them that he’s found nothing, no trace, no sign that Ryan’s dead but no signs that he’s alive either… well sometimes Spencer has Pete take the calls.

The hope of him not being dead, the fact that there’s been no body found, that’s right there is enough reason for Spencer to _keep_ having hope.

*

Pete comes by on Wednesday; Spencer had been busy in the studio that Tuesday, they’re recording now. The sounds that are coming out are reminiscent of their first album, except instead of singing Ryan’s pain for the world to hear, they’re going to be singing _their_ pain for the world to hear.

It makes him a little irrationally angry sometimes that their pain seems to be worth more then Ryan’s pain had been.

Pete drops onto the couch and he has a yellow manila envelope in his hand, he leans his head against the back of the couch and when Spencer looks at him, _really_ looks at him he can see that he looks pale, and kind of shaky.

He’d offer to call Patrick but he can’t remember if they’re actually talking this week or not.

“What did he have to say this time?” Brendon asks, he slides past Spencer standing in the doorway and pats Jon on the head as he bounces past.

Pete holds up the envelope and waves it in their direction; Brendon is the one that takes it because Spencer is frozen in the doorway.

They’ve never gotten an envelope before. Always before it had been a phone call and nothing new and here’s where you need to send this months payment.

“What…?” Spencer manages. Brendon is dumping the contents of the envelope out and Spencer manages to make his legs move forward.

There are pictures on the coffee table, surveillance pictures and that’s Ryan’s face. Smooth and blank and looking no older then he had when he’d disappeared, Spencer touches shaking fingers against one of the pictures.

In it Ryan is seemingly looking directly at the camera, Spencer thinks he’s not, he can’t be, he was most likely just focused on something that was in the direction of the camera. But it had allowed the PI a good front and center shot of Ryan’s face.

There’s others in the pictures with him, a young man that is never far from his side in any of them and two other men and a young woman.

“He always ends up losing them, and he apparently only caught them the first time by accident, wrong place at the right fucking time,” Pete is saying. He’s touching one of the pictures as well.

“He’s alive, we’ve found him,” Spencer says, breathes really. It comes natural and easy and something in him that he hadn’t even known had been tensed and coiled is relaxing.

He can’t know, not then, that just because they’ve found him doesn’t mean that they’ve _found_ him.

*

There are strange things going on. Now that he’s not distracted by the possibility of Ryan being missing and maybe dead he can see them.

Men in orange uniforms with symbols that he’s never seen before are standing in places of security behind the President and any official in a position of power. There are news broadcasts and televised conferences and the men in orange uniforms that he’s never seen before are leaning over shoulders and whispering in ears.

There’s something about them that sets him on edge, makes all the hairs on his neck stand up.

He doesn’t really pay it a whole lot of attention, doesn’t really pay it any attention other then in a ‘don’t want to meet up with them in a darkened alley’ way.

Then he comes into the room to find Jon and Brendon and Ian glued to the TV, staring with wide eyes at a news broadcast.

There’s a car chase going on, four motorcycles and a car tearing down streets, police and cars with that symbol that is on those orange uniforms in hot pursuit.

There’s a news helicopter in the air and the majority of the footage is coming directly from them. It’s surreal, it’s _unreal_ and Spencer would think that they’re watching a movie but it’s not, Brendon makes a sound and Spencer presses a hand to his mouth as something, a white, blinding _something_ opens up directly in the path of the car and two of the four motorcycles. They vanish and the white _something_ vanishes with them, blinks out of existence right before two police cars and one car with that orange symbol on it can get to it.

“Oh my fucking god,” Ian is saying, over and over again. Spencer blinks at the TV, blinks and he knows that his mouth is opening and closing because he can feel the movement.

But nothing is coming out, he’s just standing there, gawking at the TV like he’s never seen a high speed chase when in L.A. they’re the norm.

*

They capture one of them, the girl apparently didn’t make it to whatever that white _something_ was in time and they flash her picture all over the TV.

Spencer tries not to think too closely about the fact that the girl whose picture they’re flashing on the TV is the same girl that had been in those pictures with Ryan.

She’s pretty, though not someone that Spencer would have thought would be Ryan’s type.

The men in orange uniforms that Spencer doesn’t want to meet in a dark alley take custody of her almost immediately and that’s when they find out about Operation Teams split under nine different umbrellas and a war that’s been brewing for almost 300 hundred years between planets that they didn’t even know _existed_ until the day that Time Ops made the decision to include Earth in their rotation of planets that they monitor.

As much as Spencer wishes they would have just left them out of it, he has a feeling that Ryan would still be missing if they had.

*

Ships start showing up, transports and it would be pretty amazing, the fact that they’re _not alone_ , that there’s alien races out there that have conquered space travel… except that there’s also whispers that maybe the men in orange uniforms (Sec Ops) aren’t necessarily the good guys. That maybe they’re the bad guys and that the president and their rulers have aligned themselves with the wrong side in the war.

The girl, her name is Jessica, was a Captain in Time Ops and there are pictures of the remains of her team. There are no names listed under them when they’re flashed across the TV as ‘Persons of Interest’ and they’re told to consider them ‘Armed and Dangerous’.

Spencer still recognizes Ryan’s face when they flash the picture of the driver of the car, he doesn’t recognize any of the others, just Ryan.

“Where do you think he learned how to drive like that?” Jon asks. It’s a hushed question and Spencer just looks at him.

“Because no offense, but you’ve ridden with Ryan, _I’ve_ ridden with Ryan… Ryan doesn’t drive like that,” Jon shakes his head. “Ryan drives like my grandmother on a good day, and my grandmother definitely doesn’t drive like she’s been training for NASCAR in her spare time.”

“It could not be Ryan,” Ian says reasonably, he’s one of them, is maybe more one of them then Ryan or Jon had ever been.

“It’s Ryan,” Spencer says. To his own ears his voice sounds sure, positive, no doubt. He’s not sure where any of that’s coming from.

He just knows that’s Ryan, every time he sees a picture and scrutinizes it just that little bit closer he’s just that much more sure. It surprises him that no one has come forward with a name. It’s not like Ryan was an unknown, he’d had fans, people that knew him and of him.

Nobody comes forward to put a name to the picture that’s flashing on the screen every ten minutes.

Spencer thinks it’s because others are feeling what he’s feeling.

That if boiled down to black and white and right and wrong and good and evil… Sec Ops are _not_ the good guys.

Time Ops might not be either, Spencer thinks that if Ryan has aligned himself with that organization it probably closer to good then the one trying to hunt him down.

*

There’s a prison break, no footage because apparently the prison break happened on a prison _planet_ that was supposed to be impossible to break out of.

They should have probably shored up their defenses against being broke _in_ to. Because that’s what happens.

Time Ops and Psi Ops launch a joint rescue operation and break 147 political prisoners off the planet.

Jessica is one of them, Spencer’s not sure who the other 146 were, or if they were just lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time.

*

Time Ops makes its grand appearance at a press conference. In the background Spencer can see Ryan; Jessica on one side and the young man that was in almost every picture that the PI had managed to get on the other.

They’re all in crisp, black uniforms and they’re virtually identical in appearance with the exception of a series of pins on the collar of Ryan’s coat that none of the others have. Spencer doesn’t know what it means, those pins or lack of pins. He’s sure they’ll find out eventually.

Sec Ops is gone, taken into custody for the most part, some had managed to flee but they’re being assured by General Clooney of Time Ops that they’ll be apprehended shortly.

Spencer sits on the couch, Brendon on one side, Jon on the other.

“We welcome this opportunity to open negotiations between Earth and the diplomats of the Foran Systems,” General Clooney says, his hands are braced on either side of the podium in front of him and his face is serious. His uniform is identical in nature to the ones that the Time Operatives standing behind him are wearing.

“To help along those negotiations and foster goodwill we will be setting up a temporary base of operations here to serve as transitory Ambassadors for Time Ops and to provide security for the incoming Foran Systems delegates.”

General Clooney smiles and looks to his left and then his right. Fifteen people step forward, Ryan’s team, with Jessica in front of them is on the right, the other two teams with no members that look in anyway familiar are on the left.

Spencer bites his lip and grips his hands together.

Ryan’s here, Ryan’s staying.

Now they just have to get to him.

*

They can’t get to him. Pete tries, calls in favors and wheedles and begs to no avail.

“There’s just… they’re keeping them all on tight fucking leashes or something,” Pete sounds frustrated. “I even tried telling them the truth, pulled out a picture of Ryan and held it up against the one that they were flashing all over the TV for a while there and nothing.”

It’s a set back for sure; Spencer thinks they just need to be patient, just need to wait and eventually Ryan will come to them.

None of them have ever been good at waiting.

*

People Magazine introduces the members of the three Time Ops teams by way of a fifteen page article. Spencer picks up two copies of the magazine and sits there with the others and flips through it.

There’s Jessica, with her half smile and tanned skin and dark curly hair. And Jensen who may or may not be involved with her. Jake who’s sort of scowling at the camera and is the one that was in the majority of the pictures the PI got of Ryan and a young man named Chad.

And Ryan, or Jericho as he’s introduced (there’s a short paragraph with a picture of Jericho and a picture of Ryan that compares them and questions if Jericho might actually be the missing Ryan Ross). He’s the only member of the teams that’s not actually a member of Time Ops; he’s instead a member of Psi Ops that is working in collaboration with Time Ops.

And has been for years.

Spencer knows enough now to know that Psi Ops is short for Psychic Operations and he wonders if that was why Ryan had left.

*

Ryan doesn’t come. Instead Jake shows up Spencer’s.

He’s calm, eerily calm.

“We just want to see him,” Spencer says. He thinks it sounds reasonable. He doesn’t say ‘ _give me back my best friend you asshole_ ’, he thinks he should get bonus points for that, even if Ryan hadn’t been his best friend for years, even if Ryan hadn’t even been a _friend_ for that same amount of time.

“He’s not your friend, I don’t know what you need to be told to make you believe that but it is the truth,” Jake says. He’s in his uniform and the creases look sharp enough to cut skin if they were to touch him.

“Look,” Pete says. He lays the pictures side by side on the coffee table, one of Ryan right before he vanished, one of the shots that had been airing on the TV when Time Ops had still been sought by Sec Ops next to it.

Jake looks at them, studies them.

“Jericho is not your Mr. Ross,” he says finally. His voice sounds sure, positive. There’s not even a hint of _doubt_ that Spencer can detect.

“Jericho?” Jon asks.

“It’s a code name, Psi Operatives mostly only use their code names, it’s as true a name as any other you could lay at his feet.”

“Then he could still be Ryan,” Brendon says. “They have the same hair and the same face.”

“Jericho has been with Psi Ops since he was about eight months old.”

Spencer bites his lip.

“I’m sorry,” Jake says, he sounds firm but apologetic. “There’s just no way that Jericho could be your Mr. Ross.”

Spencer looks down at the pictures, Ryan on one side, Jericho on the other. He stares at them, until he swears they’re moving; the pictures don’t change though. That’s Ryan looking at him through Jericho’s eyes. He knows those eyes, that face, that hair; and regardless of how their friendship had ended up Ryan had been his best friend for more then half his life, Spencer _knows_ Ryan.

And that’s Ryan, somehow; Spencer is sure of this.

*

They keep pushing, making a nuisance of themselves.

Enough so that Jessica is the next one to come. She’s waiting for them one day when they come back from the studio and she looks hard and unforgiving.

Spencer gets the feeling that she could kill them or do them irreparable harm and not even bat an eye or break a nail.

“If you keep pushing,” she says, “we remove the issue.”

Spencer blinks at her and doesn’t let his unease show though he is definitely feeling it.

“What’s that supposed to be mean?” Jon asks, he’s narrowing his eyes at her and she’s narrowing her eyes right back at him.

“If you keep pushing we remove the issue, we send Jericho back to our home base and we don’t allow him back,” Jessica says. “We don’t want to make that move, Jake would be unhappy and Jensen would never let me hear the end of it; but if you keep this up it’ll be our only recourse.”

“He’s our friend,” Spencer says, he’s as sure of this as he is of anything.

“He’s not,” Jessica says. “I’m sorry for your loss, I’m sorry that you’re still grieving, but making Jericho into your Mr. Ross is just not going to happen. He doesn’t know you, is as confused as he gets as to why you keep pushing the fact that he is.”

Spencer runs a hand over his face, shares a look with Pete, glances over at where Brendon is looking at the floor with sad eyes and Jon has his arms wrapped around himself like he’s cold.

“He has tattoos,” Spencer says, to his ears his voice sounds almost desperate. “’Mad as a Hatter, Thin as a Dime’, on his wrists and these… symbols on the backs of his arms.”

Jessica’s eyes narrow in on him. Spencer just looks at her, holds his breath, after this they have nothing to lose. If she says Jericho has clean arms and wrists then they’re done.

They bury Ryan and sell off his house and move on.

“He has markings,” Jessica allows and Spencer breathes, maybe for the first time since Ryan went missing. He hadn’t realized that he’d been holding his breath that long. “I’ve never seen them, maybe Jake will have a better idea of what they are, Jensen might as well.”

“Why would…?”

“Jericho and Jake have been together for going on three years, if anyone is going to know it will be Jake; and Jensen shared a room with him for several months after he came to Time Ops, he might know as well.”

*

Ryan had never officially told anyone that he was maybe gay, or bi; that he maybe looked at boys more then girls, and had _maybe_ been more attached to Pete then Pete would have allowed if he had known.

Spencer only suspects, he doesn’t _actually_ know. He’s not even sure that _Ryan_ really knew, had any inkling.

Though he’d seemed to attach himself to Greenwald fairly quickly and very firmly; so maybe he’d had _some_ idea.

*

Chad is waiting for them when they get back from the studio, Pete is with them and Spencer would say something about Pete not having a home if he didn’t already know that Ashlee had kicked Pete out two weeks ago for reasons that Pete won’t discuss.

“I need you to come with me,” Chad says, he starts down the walk and doesn’t look back to see if they’re following.

The lure of possibly seeing Ryan again, after all this time, even if he’s professing to not know them is as enticing a lure as a Pied Pipers pipe would have even dreamed of being.

*

Chad leads them to a room in the back of the building that is serving as the base of operations for Time Ops; they’ve passed through three different types of security, had to give their cell phones up at the second desk as well as be patted down by a stern faced older man that seemed highly suspicious of them and their presence there; all that and they have badges clipped onto their clothing that state they’re 24 hour visitors.

Spencer has no doubt that if they’re still on-site in 24 hours and 1 second that they will be unceremoniously removed from the premises.

Or maybe shot.

Ryan is not in the dimly lit room when they get ushered in; Chad closes and locks the door behind them. It takes a few seconds for his eyes to adjust and when he does he sees what looks like a man tied to a chair with blood on his face.

Spencer takes a step back and Brendon’s hand wraps around his arm.

“Thank you for joining us,” Jessica says, she looks at them and there is a grim expression on her face. Whatever answers, whatever words she’s gotten from this man have not been words that pleased her.

“This is Apex,” Jensen says, he pushes away from the wall and goes to stand behind the man, his hands coming down to settle on his shoulders. “He was one of Jericho’s handlers when he first joined our team in Time Ops, one of his trainers when he was still at Psi Ops.”

The man looks at them and there’s an expression in his eyes that causes Spencer to shudder.

“Don’t look at them,” Jessica states, she slaps him, the noise of skin hitting skin echoing loudly within the confines of the room.

“They’re not one of us,” he says dismissively and Jessica slaps him again.

“Jess,” Jensen says, Jake comes forward and touches her arm gently, squeezes. There’s a look that passes between them and Jake looks at them and steps back, arms crossing over his chest as he looks away.

“Jericho is your friend,” Jessica says to them; she glares at Apex.

“Jericho is _nothing_ to them,” he spits out the words and the expression in his eyes is murderous. “Jericho will _never_ be anything to them.”

“Because you _stole_ him, you kidnapped him from his home and his friends and his family…”

Apex laughs.

“Friends? Family?” Apex sneers. “Is that what they’ve told you? That they’re his _friends_? His _family_? They’re fucking _lying_ if that’s the case.”

“And how do you know that?” Jake asks, he steps forward. “How are you so sure of that?”

“Because I was in there, in his mind when Castiel was pulling his memories apart. They aren’t his friends, maybe at one time they could have been considered that, but by the time we found him again, by the time we got him back he was alone.”

“We’re going to want whatever memories were taken out put back in,” Jessica says.

Apex laughs again. “It’s like you’ve never met Castiel,” he says sarcastically. “Ask Jericho or better yet ask your boyfriend over there what some of Castiel’s gifts are.”

Jessica looks over at Jensen, Spencer does too and there’s dawning horror lining Jensen’s face.

“You had Misha raze his mind,” he breathes.

“They wouldn’t do that to one of their own,” Jessica says.

“Yeah, they would,” Jensen touches his fingers to his forehead, his eyes close and he looks almost defeated.

*

They leave the room and General Clooney is standing there, Spencer starts and takes a step back. It doesn’t matter he completely ignores them anyway, focuses his entire attention on Jessica.

“I can’t hold them off much longer,” he says.

“We’re done,” Jessica says, she sounds tired.

“Did we get what we wanted?” he asks and she looks at him and utters a harsh laugh.

“It depends… did we want to know that Jericho was kidnapped when he was three years old from a Psi Ops training facility? Or did we want to know that he was kidnapped _again_ when he was 22 years old and had his mind completely razed before they rebuilt him into what they thought he should have been?”

The General nods at her, “I’ll have Apex removed from the facility and held at another location. Where is Jericho now?”

“Training exercise with Sean’s team, they requested a psychic for point,” Jake says.

“You should probably have a story in place for why all four of you have been blocking him for the majority of the day; I’ve already fielded two not so subtle queries as to whether I’ve sent you on assignment and someone forgot to include him.”

*

Jessica is pouring drinks in a bright room; her hands are not shaking because this is not happening.

This is a nightmare, a waking nightmare that feels and sounds real but is, in reality, just a horrible dream that she can’t wake herself from.

It’s happened before; she’d had nightmares of that hellish mission when she’d been captured for months prior.

Jensen takes the bottle from her hand, finishes pouring the drinks and doesn’t look at her.

He knows what she’s going to ask him to do. He’s not psychic, not enough for it to matter anyway; not like Jericho is. But he’s known her for almost her entire life, they’ve built an entire language on the movements of their hands and eyes and the way they hold themselves.

“How do we proceed?” Chad asks, he reaches in front of her and takes two of the glasses, pressing one of them into Jake’s hands, the other into Spencer Smith’s.

“Jake deters Jericho,” Jessica says. Start with the simple things, the things that she knows how to deal with.

Jake deals with Jericho, there’s very few times that they would not have Jake do that, or Jake wouldn’t be in a position to do that. When Jake had broken up with him, while she’d been locked away on some prison planet, was one of those times.

Then, apparently, Jensen had dealt with Jericho. Jessica hasn’t asked, doesn’t want to know if that meant that Jensen had slept with him, Jake has never physically assaulted Jensen to her knowledge and Castiel hasn’t tried to kill Jericho so she doesn’t believe so, but…

“And you want me to talk to Misha,” Jensen says, he takes a sip from the glass in his hand, turns and surveys the room while he leans back against the desk.

“Just to verify that what Apex said is true,” Jessica says.

Jensen just looks at her. She knows, as well as he does, that just contacting Misha to verify the truth of what Apex said will not happen.

Misha will want to see him, maybe even sleep with him, she doesn’t know if Jensen will want to see or sleep with _him_ in return.

Jensen likes him, whether that translates over to something physical, whether that means that Jensen lets Misha fuck him or fucks him in return when he sees him she just doesn’t ask. You don’t ask the questions that you don’t _really_ want the answers to.

Jensen has been in her life for as long as she can remember, she’s been in love with him for most of it. None of that means she actually gets to _have_ him.

And if she has him none of that means that she gets to _keep_ him.

“Why do you call him by two different names?” Brendon asks, he’s latched onto Jon’s arm with a tight grip and Jessica has made it a point to learn these people, especially once it appeared they wanted to take Jericho from them.

Apex was right about one thing, they’re probably not people that could have been considered friends of Ross’. But they’re the ones that have been looking for him, they’re the ones pushing, so _they’re_ the ones that Jessica has to deal with at the moment.

“Misha Collins is with Psi Ops,” Jake says, “Castiel is his code name…”

“Like Jericho is Ryan’s,” Pete says, she looks closely at him and his face is white and there’s a faint trembling in his hands. She’d offer him a drink or a pill but her file on him says that he’s on several medications and she can’t dedicate any brain power to figuring out what to give him that won’t interact with anything he might have already taken.

“Yeah,” Jake rubs a hand over his face. “Except Misha will answer to either Misha or Castiel. Jericho will most likely never answer to Ryan.”

“You said…” Spencer swallows and Jessica downs the rest of her glass, then lays it on the desk, presses fingers to her forehead and wishes that someone else had to do this.

“Think of it like amnesia, with no hope of the memories ever returning,” Jessica offers. “That’s what we mean when we say they razed his mind. They took out everything, and started completely over. There is nothing that would be recognizable as a memory Ryan Ross might have had, an experience that he might have lived. For however long it took Castiel to put memories and events in their place he was a complete blank slate.”

There’s a look on his face that is devastation; utter loss and sorrow and she thinks that maybe Apex didn’t have _this_ part right, at least. These people, or at least Spencer Smith had cared, at least enough to feel sadness at the thought of not being able to reclaim the young man.

And if Apex was wrong about that he might be wrong about other things as well.

“Misha had been disenchanted with Psi Ops for months by that point, he might have not done the job that they wanted done completely,” Jensen looks over at her, she can feel his eyes on the side of her head. She doesn’t look back.

“He could have left something there, could have built a wall or a safe or something to keep some tiny remnant of who Ryan Ross was behind.”

“And he might not have,” Spencer whispers.

Jessica looks over at him and the group of them is huddled around each other, she feels sympathy for them.

It doesn’t mean that she can help them.

The door opens then and there’s Jericho blinking at them from the doorway, it’s the only clear cut sign that the sight in front of him has startled him.

“Hey,” Jake says, he smiles and it’s bright and open and there’s no sign of any emotion that he might be feeling other then delight at seeing his boyfriend.

“Hello,” Jericho has never been anything but proper with them, Jessica wonders sometimes if he even lets his guard down when he’s in private with Jake.

He has to; she can’t imagine him being as stiff and unyielding as he can be when the two of them are alone in their rooms.

He arches a brow at her and she knows she must have broadcast that thought; she picks up one of the other glasses and takes a sip so as to not have to say anything.

The others are staring at him openly, Jericho is ignoring them as is his wont when he’s faced with people he either doesn’t know or doesn’t care to deal with.

“We’ve come to an agreement,” Jake says as he steps forward, you have to know what to look for, but Jericho’s posture relaxes just slightly at Jake being within arms reach.

“Oh,” Jericho says, there’s no inflection or tone to his voice. It used to annoy her when he first joined her team that she couldn’t tell if he was surprised, angry, happy. She’s gotten used to it now though, even has her own ways of determining what he may or may not be feeling.

As such she can tell that there’s not a _hint_ of recognition when his eyes glance over the four standing together.

“They’re going to stop pushing the whole you’re their missing friend and we’re going to help figure out what actually _happened_ to their friend,” Jake says.

“And by ‘we’ you mean ‘me’.”

“I was thinking more Astrid and you, but yeah,” Jake smiles at him, Jericho’s lips quirk at him in the beginnings of a smile that is banished just as quickly.

“The house the young man was snatched from has been mostly vacant,” Jensen says.

“No one could…” Spencer bites his lip. His eyes are bright; Jessica can’t tell if the tears are there because his once lost friend is standing there in front of him, or because the once lost friend is standing there and doesn’t have any clue who the hell he is to him, to them.

Jericho looks at him and Jessica holds the glass against her lips and watches. Spencer makes a face like he’s feeling something uncomfortable and that’s the only outward sign that Jericho is brushing over his mind. He doesn’t know them; and unless they give permission he won’t intrude other then to get the barest of readings at the moment.

“If a significant enough event occurred within the confines of the property and a psychic hasn’t gone through and wiped it down Astrid and I might be able to get a reading,” Jericho allows. He nods once, probably to himself.

“I’ll go contact her now and see if she has some free time; it was a pleasure to meet you,” he says as he turns on his heel and leaves.

His mind is on the other things; else he would have noticed the stricken expressions on the fours faces.

“He didn’t know us at all,” Jon says almost in disbelief, there are tears in Spencer’s eyes and Brendon has a hand pressed to his mouth.

“Misha razed his mind,” Jensen reminds them, Jessica looks at him. “And I’ll go contact him and find out if he maybe, by chance didn’t finish the job completely.”

*

Jake calls to tell them that Jericho has gotten hold of whoever Astrid is and that the two of them would like to schedule a time to go through Ryan’s house.

Brendon wants to ask why Jericho (he _has_ to keep calling him Jericho in his head or he’ll end up calling him Ryan to his face and then he’ll end up screaming at him about stupid things that don’t really matter) couldn’t call to set up the time and place himself, instead he tells Jake that they’re pretty much available at any time that works for them on Tuesday, Thursday or Sunday.

Jake also tells them that Jericho will allow two others to go with them and there’s never any doubt in anyone’s mind that Spencer will be one of those two.

Brendon cheats in order to be the other, he has to because Jon is cheating as well and Pete is whining.

Greenwald and Z probably have the most right to be there, to have those two slots, but they aren’t the ones that have been in contact with Jessica; that’s been him and Spencer and Jon and Pete and Ian.

Besides on years of friendship alone Spencer is Ryan’s oldest friend and Brendon is the next oldest. The fact that they might not have even been able to have a conversation there towards the end of that friendship without it disintegrating into a yelling match, he _is_ still the second oldest friend and he’s Spencer’s best now.

It should be him there for Spencer to clutch onto when Ryan looks at them with blank, unknowing eyes.

When they get to the house Jericho and the young woman who must be Astrid are already there, leaning against their car and staring at the house.

Brendon takes a deep breath and braces himself for Ryan not knowing him; beside him Spencer is pale and his shoulders are slightly hunched.

Astrid notices them first and she straightens and smiles at them as they get out of their car.

Zack doesn’t know where they are, he’ll probably throw a fit when he finds out.

“Hello,” she says, bright eyes and warm smile, she looks nice, young. Not like she would be someone who would be party to kidnapping someone and erasing their mind and making them into something that they’re not. He wonders what her real name is.

“Jake went to get tea, we’ll go in once he returns,” Jericho says. He looks at them and there’s still that blankness, the eyes that look at them are not angry with words unspoken or happy to see them. There’s just nothing.

“I’m back,” Jake says from behind them, Brendon glances back and he’s a few steps behind them, a cup carrier with three cups in it in his hands. He steps up and Astrid and Jericho remove cups, leaving one behind for Jake that he takes out before he drops the carrier through an open window of their car onto the front passenger seat.

“So…” Jake says, Jericho takes a sip of his tea and Astrid just holds her cup within both hands like she’s cold and only using the tea to warm herself.

“I think we’re ready?” Astrid asks, she looks at Jericho questioningly as he nods once at her, she sets the cup on the roof of the car, taking the cup from Jericho’s hand and holding it out until Jake takes it. Brendon takes her cup from the top of the car and she beams at him.

“I was drinking that,” Jericho says, there’s a twinge in his chest that hurts, because Jericho’s lips are twisting into a familiar grin and he has Ryan’s voice so the grin is the only way that he can tell that Jericho is amused.

Brendon looks at the house and bites his lip, a glance out of the corner of his eye shows that Spencer has his arms wrapped around himself like he’s cold.

“Both hands,” Astrid says, she links her fingers with his and Brendon can see her squeezing, when he focuses his gaze back on Jericho’s face he sees that there is a wry, amused expression there.

“How long did your Mr. Ross live here?” Jericho asks, he turns his back on them as he and Astrid start toward the house, fingers still linked together.

“Um,” Brendon exchanges a look with Spencer. “A little shy of a year.”

“Hmm,” Jericho doesn’t say anything, doesn’t turn and they walk up the steps, the other three trailing behind.

“If it was a cataclysmic enough event,” Astrid begins.

“There could still be remnants, yes.” Jericho sounds doubtful.

“Well we won’t know unless we go inside,” Astrid says, she leans slightly into Jericho’s side and Brendon can see her head tilting up to look at him.

“Of course,” Jericho says, he doesn’t release her hand and she opens the door with her other, the two of them stepping inside together.

Brendon hears Jake take a deep breath and swallow audibly, next to him Spencer is shaking slightly and Brendon links their arms together at the elbows and nudges him with his shoulder.

Jake walks in first, the two of them following behind. Brendon thinks that this might not end the way any of them want it to.

*

The house is _almost_ clean.

Almost but not quite.

 _See that there,_ Astrid points in his mind and he nods to show he sees it.

A psychic of some power has gone through this house, but they were in a hurry, or never thought another psychic would be going through it after them.

Or maybe they thought the house would linger, empty for only a short while, before being sold off, another family, some other young man moving in and those theoretical presences wiping over and hiding what little remnants of Ryan Ross would remain.

But the house hadn’t been sold; there have been no other occupants to finish the job that psychic began but never finished.

 _Just a little bit there,_ Jericho says, he can see the remains of Ryan Ross though he can’t _see_ the young man, not just yet.

“Where did he go missing from?” he hears Jake ask. He’s grateful for Jake’s presence, it’s familiar and grounding in a way that he’s gotten so used to that he sometimes thinks he might take him for granted.

Plus he knows what questions to ask, what information that Astrid and he will need clarification on.

“We… there was… there was a fight in the living room we think; that’s where the most damage was anyway,” Brendon says.

 _That way,_ Astrid points and he would have known in what direction to head regardless, the room is a shining beacon.

He draws a deep breath, next to him he can feel Astrid’s fingers tight around his own, feel the deep evenness of her breaths.

“Not until they give us the go ahead,” Jake says. Brendon or Spencer would have been trying to follow them into the room.

“Your presence will begin to overwrite any memory still there; Jericho and Astrid can shield themselves, walk among the memories and ascertain what we need to know.”

 _I need a Jake,_ Astrid sighs and in his mind Jericho smirks, Jake is awesome; he wouldn’t give him up for anything.

 _You can’t have mine,_ he says, Astrid snorts at him and rolls her eyes.

 _Ready?_

Jericho nods and they lower shields together, he braces himself and it takes but a moment for the energy of the room to start circulating around them.

Memories needing to be heard, to be seen.

 _Oh,_ Astrid stares, stunned at where Ryan Ross is sitting on the couch, guitar in his hands. Jericho blinks at this young man that wears his face. No wonder his friends have been having a difficult time with his presence.

He turns away, keeps his fingers linked with Astrid as he surveys the room.

There was definitely a fight here, broken furniture and glassware, a hole in the TV. He concentrates and pushes at the memory.

“He was a psychic,” he says, he _doesn’t_ say, ‘and he looks exactly like me’; he doesn’t expect any response but he still feels the jolt from Brendon and Spencer.

He wonders if they knew, if they’d had some inkling that maybe there was something just a _little_ bit different about their friend.

“Um…”

“He doesn’t actually need you to say anything,” Jake says. “He’s just telling you what the room is saying.”

“The energy is such that there was more then one psychic in the room at some point; he was shielded, the others didn’t make the effort,” Astrid says.

“There are no psychics here, not like Psi Ops, where would he have got the training to…?” Jake starts.

Jericho closes his eyes, concentrates.

“They’re old shields,” Jericho says. This young man, Ryan, he hadn’t used his gifts at all, Jericho isn’t even sure he knew they were there. “I don’t believe he even knew he was psychic until the end. Maybe not even then.”

“How old?” Spencer asks softly, Jericho swings his head in the direction of the door and there are tears on the young mans face, Jericho wishes that what they were going to find was going to ease his suffering. He doesn’t believe that to be the case.

“They’re training shields, he would have been young when he was taught to build them,” Jericho says. He turns back, cocks his head, squints his eyes and pushes a little more at the memory. “Maybe three, four at the oldest.”

When he looks back at the door he doesn’t understand the look that is passing between Jake and Spencer and Brendon. He pushes it to the back of his mind, he’ll find out from Jake later.

“Forward?” Astrid asks and he nods and turns his attention back to the room.

“Forward?” he hears from behind him.

“Through the memories. They can sift through events that happened in the room, times that are of either great importance or have great emotional content leave a mark, a remnant that they can see,” Jake says softly.

He can feel Astrid pulling at the strands of memory and he pulls with her, searching for that event that caused this room to be the beacon that it is.

 _This one?_ Astrid asks. There’s another young man, Ryan is standing there, head slightly bowed and the other young man is angry. Hands gesturing and face red.

It’s a fight definitely, but it’s not a physical one; this is all raised voices and waving hands. As they watch the young man turns and stalks out of the room, Ryan’s head is still bowed, his hands come up and cover his face and Jericho wonders if he’s crying.

“He had a fight with someone here,” Jericho says absently.

“Who…?” Spencer starts, stops, maybe he remembers what Jake said about their only commenting on the room’s information.

“Not someone that we’ve seen before,” Jericho says.

 _Do you want to push_? Astrid asks.

 _No, if we do we run the risk of that memory overwriting what we’re actually looking for,_ Jericho says, better to find what they’re looking for and try and go back to the memories they need clarification for later.

 _Okay,_ Astrid starts pulling again and Jericho narrows his eyes, guiding the strands until he feels it. The jolt of the event is large enough that he staggers, Astrid’s hand gripping his tightly, reflexively.

“Jericho?” he hears, Jake sounds worried, he opens his mouth to say something to reassure him.

He doesn’t manage to make a sound, because the room that had been swirling in emotions and memories finally firms into something they can see.

He wishes he couldn’t.

 _Oh,_ Astrid sounds stricken in his mind. _He never even had a **chance**._

Jericho shakes his head and tries to keep himself separated from the emotions of the room. It’s harder then it should be, he has to fight to put up blocks, to keep a separation from what Ryan Ross experienced in this room and himself.

In front of them Ryan Ross is terrified, the men that he’s fighting are determined and despite themselves a little impressed that he’s actually fighting.

The guards are Psi Ops elite; he can tell from their badges and pins, as much as Ryan is fighting like he _maybe_ has a chance to get away, Jericho knows that they’re playing with him, taking his measure with feints and punches and kicks; he _never_ had a chance.

They have him on the ground within minutes, five at the most, it had probably felt like forever to him.

They bind his wrists behind his back; pull him up till he’s on his knees. There’s blood on his face, Jericho can tell that one eye is going to swell shut very shortly. He’s struggling against his bonds.

Still fighting, it’s admirable in a way.

 _What the fuck?_ Jericho says, because that’s Apex coming into the room, slowly, with a needle in one hand and he looks amused as Ryan tries to skitter away from him at the sight of it, the guards behind him making that an impossible action.

One of the guards leans down, holds Ryan’s shoulders still as Apex pushes the needle into his arm, another takes the syringe from him when he’s finished and he runs a hand down Ryan’s head like he’s attempting to soothe him.

He turns to look at the door and Jericho and Astrid do as well, he can see Jake standing there just outside the room, Spencer and Brendon there with him. They don’t matter, its Castiel walking through them into the room that does.

He looks sad and there’s a brief second where Jericho thinks that Castiel _sees_ them. He walks up to stand next to Apex then squats in front of Ryan. Ryan’s blinking slowly at him and he’s fighting the drug but if it’s what Jericho thinks it is he’s fighting yet _another_ losing battle.

He concentrates, focuses and he can tell the second that Astrid realizes what he’s doing and lends her strength to his.

 _“I’ll need a few moments with him,” Castiel says, Apex looks down at him. “He needs to understand what’s going to happen.”_

 _“You really think that’s necessary? It’s not like he’s going to remember any of it,” Apex says_

He sounds dismissive; Jericho wonders if they’re witnessing the moment when Castiel completely lost faith in Psi Ops. He’d always thought it had something to do with Jensen, but he could have been wrong.

 _“It makes **me** feel better,” Castiel says. He’s cupping Ryan’s face in his hands and not looking at Apex._

 _“Whatever,” Apex makes a gesture and the guards step back. “Should I leave one of them with you?”_

 _“You’ve got him drugged to the gills and bound; I think I can manage to handle him if he tries to fight me.”_

 _Apex snorts and stalks out of the room, the guards following._

There’s the phantom sound of a door closing and Jericho knows if they look that way they’ll see the ghostly impression of a door shut in front of Jake and Ryan’s friends.

 _Castiel strokes his fingers down the side of Ryan’s face._

 _“Let me go. Please,” Ryan mumbles, his head is drooping, chin almost touching his chest._

 _“I’m sorry,” Castiel murmurs, he leans forward and kisses his forehead. “You’ll never know how much and I think you’ll not believe me regardless, but I’m ever so sorry for my part in this.”_

 _“I don’t…” Ryan starts._

 _“You don’t understand,” Castiel nods. “I know, the thing is though I don’t require **you** to understand.” He looks over his shoulder, directly at a space that should be empty._

 _“Jericho, Astrid,” he says, he comes smoothly to his feet and without him in front of him or the guards holding him still, Ryan slumps to the ground unconscious._

“Castiel,” Astrid snaps, she sounds angry.

 _“I’m sorry Astrid, but I don’t require your presence for this,” Castiel says._

He steps forward and touches her forehead and the link between them is severed as she’s pushed back and out of the memory.

 _“Do you understand now?” Castiel asks._

Jericho stares at him in incomprehension, there’s an unsettled, prickling sensation in his stomach as he watches Castiel look back and forth between him and the unconscious Ryan Ross.

“Misha,” he says, he doesn’t want to understand, he wishes for another explanation but he knows that one isn’t going to be forthcoming. There is only the knowledge, however unseemly, that this is him.

 _This_ is how he became who he is.

 _“I’m sorry; if you believe nothing else you have to believe that.”_

 _*_

Astrid staggers back and Jake doesn’t think, he drops the cups in his hands and darts forward before she goes down, his hands go around her waist and she’s growling in anger.

“Astrid?”

“Jericho?” Astrid ignores him, pushing away from Jake and taking the three steps until she’s in front of Jericho. Jake puts a hand on her back and ignores Brendon and Spencer stepping into the room.

It doesn’t matter now; it’s all gone to hell in a hand basket.

Jericho is staring at nothing, his eyes have that vacant look in them though that Jake knows means that there’s a memory there that he’s seeing.

“Misha,” he says and his voice sounds helpless, lost in a way that Jake hasn’t heard since he’d told him they were finished right after Jessica was captured. Jake feels Astrid flinch; she grips Jericho’s hand and closes her eyes.

“Anything?” he asks, he touches Jericho’s cheek with one hand and glances over at her.

“No, he has his shields back up, either that or Castiel is interfering,” she’s still pushing though, trying.

“Castiel’s not here how is he interfering?” Jake cups Jericho’s head within his hands, brushes his thumbs over his cheekbones, stares at him and wills him back.

“I don’t know,” Astrid says and her voice is lined with frustration, “he was there, in the memory and he knew that we were there, he _saw_ us,” Astrid says.

“What did you see?” Spencer asks. “You both jumped and then you said Castiel, and,” he’s waving his hands in the air.

“He never had a chance,” she says, she ignores Spencer, maybe she deems him unimportant in the grand scheme of things, she opens her eyes and looks at Jake. “You could have told me.”

“I wasn’t sure,” Jake admits softly. He hadn’t been. Even after all the proof and Apex admitting that Ryan Ross was Jericho and his part in his abduction. He hadn’t been _sure_.

“Castiel was there when they took him, foresight is one of his gifts, maybe he had a vision while he was in that room with Ryan Ross barely conscious at his feet; regardless he knew that we were there,” Astrid says again, “he pushed me out of the memory, told me that my presence wasn’t required.”

“Jericho,” Jake whispers, “come on,” he leans forward, touches their foreheads together, wills Jericho to pull himself out of the memory. He’s seen Jericho pull others out of memories when they’ve become entrenched, trapped within them. He doesn’t know of _anyone_ , besides maybe Castiel, who isn’t going to be allowed within 5 inches of Jericho if he has a say in it, that’s strong enough to pull Jericho out if he gets stuck.

He can see the second that Jericho comes out of the memory, it’s like a light goes back on his eyes and he blinks once, twice, looking directly into Jake’s eyes. He tries to smile for him but all he can see is devastation in Jericho’s eyes. Jericho’s eyes flitter to the right to Astrid, to the left to Spencer and Brendon and _this_ time there is a spark of recognition in them when he sees them standing there.

Then his eyes roll back in his head and he crumples forward into Jake’s arms.

*

The doctors are always well prepared for injuries coming in. Unless it’s Jericho.

Then there’s supposed to be very specific protocols that have to be followed, starting with things that Jake is supposed to do when Jericho goes down.

Jake doesn’t follow them, at least not all of them; he calls the doctor on duty and he calls Jessica because she’s their Captain and needs to know; what either of them does with the information he doesn’t know or care; he just knows that _he’s_ not going to be the one to place the call to Psi Ops to let them know that Jericho is down.

They had to have known that coming to Earth, taking Ryan Ross, then allowing him _back_ on Earth after would lead to repercussions.

Of course they hadn’t had much choice. General Clooney had said they were staying, if Psi Ops hadn’t wanted Jericho back here they would have had to tell them why. And Psi Ops mostly keeps their cards locked in their fucking chests with trained attack dogs guarding them.

Jake won’t allow them to take Jericho away from him; they’ve tried several times to take him back, to bring him back into the fold since Jericho more firmly aligned himself with Time Ops. They’ve always failed.

A nurse comes back out of the room that they’ve hidden Jericho away in, she has a clipboard in hand and her eyes glance over them, landing finally on Jake.

“Have you notified Captain Alba that you’ve brought him in?” she asks, she holds her pen at the ready and looks at him with raised eyebrows, expectant eyes.

“Yes, he did,” Jessica says. She steps around them and Chad stops next to him, Jake relaxes a bit, Jessica will take over now and Chad’s got his back, he can worry solely about Jericho and not procedures and what he should or should not be doing. “What do we know?”

“He’s unconscious still, the doctor is doing her checks, it would help if we knew what preceded his collapse.”

“Missing person case,” Jessica says, she touches Jake’s arm. “It was a favor we were doing, Jericho and Astrid were sent in to read the room, determine what happened, how the young man was taken and by who.”

“And he just collapsed?” the nurse asks.

“Astrid got shoved out of the memory, Jericho was in it alone and when he came out,” Jake gestures at the room.

The nurse nods, makes a note on her clipboard. When she looks up she smiles slightly at Jake, “I’ll let you know when the doctor is done and you can go sit with him,” she says. Jake nods at her and she heads back into the room to relay all the non-information they’d just imparted on her.

“Jensen’s on his way here with Misha,” Jessica says.

“If he stays out for longer then a couple of hours you should let Adam know, he might be able to…” Chad shrugs his shoulders.

“What is Adam going to do that Astrid can’t?” Jake asks with a scowl. If he doesn’t want Castiel within 5 inches of Jericho he doesn’t want Adam in any way breathing the same _air_ as Jericho if he can help it. They’ll exhaust all other options before Adam even comes close to being called.

“The fact that they’re the same race, have similar powers…”

“Astrid can figure it out, or Castiel,” if he lets Castiel in the same room with him, having Castiel in there would be better then Adam. Castiel isn’t trying to lure Jericho away from him. But there’s also a small part of him that blames Castiel for this, even though he knows that whatever Castiel did, he’d had no choice. He’d been raised, taught the same way that they’d thought Jericho had been.

He was the perfect soldier, the perfect little Psi Operative, what they forced him to do to Ryan Ross must have been the catalyst that shattered what tenuous bit of control they’d still had over him.

“Chad why don’t you get badges for Mr. Smith and Mr. Urie,” Jessica says, Jake looks over and realizes that Ryan’s friends are still standing there; he’d kind of forgotten that they’d been there.

“Okay,” Chad says.

“You should let Chad know if there’s anyone else that should have them besides Mr. Wentz and Mr. Walker,” Jessica says, she smiles at them kindly and Jake watches some of the tension leave Spencer’s shoulders. He wonders if they’d been waiting to be kicked out.

“Zack,” Brendon says, he glances over at Spencer. “Um, Zack Hall and I guess maybe Greenwald and Z?”

Spencer nods slowly, he’s staring at the door leading to Jericho’s room, Jake looks over his shoulder and it’s still closed. He looks back and Spencer is looking at him now.

He wonders if Ryan Ross had been taken from anyone besides his friends. If there’d been a boyfriend or a girlfriend that had long since given up on finding him while his friends continued to search.

Continued to hope.

He hopes not, he’s already battling Adam to keep Jericho and Adam is a mostly known quantity.

*

There’s a waiting area, an enclosed room with glass windows and Brendon is staring out them waiting for someone to come back and tell them that Ryan is okay.

That whatever he’d been seeing in the house hadn’t irreparably damaged his mind and now, just after they’ve maybe found him again, he’ll be a vegetable and never wake up.

Actually that would probably be just their luck at the moment.

Jake’s leg is twitching, fingers tapping an odd rhythm against the arms of the chair that he’s slouching in. If Brendon had thought about it, at all, Jake is completely not the type of guy Brendon thought that Ryan would go for.

For one thing he’s a guy and past flirtations with Pete and Greenwald and himself aside; Ryan had almost always been about the girls.

He’s just getting ready to ask, just maybe figured out a way to ask ‘so you guys are really fucking?’ without sounding like he disapproves.

Because he doesn’t. Really.

He opens his mouth and Zack appears in the doorway, “you two,” he shakes his head and looks kind of pissed off.

“Hey Zack,” Brendon grins at him, because they’re all together again, kind of.

At least Spencer is next to him and Jon is in the doorway next to Pete; Ryan is unconscious down the hallway and doesn’t have any clue who they are… but they’re together again and nobody’s yelling and at the moment that’s really all that matters.

“Lieutenant Gyllenhaal?” the same nurse that had been asking questions when they’d first brought Ryan in appears in the doorway behind them, stepping neatly around the wall of Zack.

“Yes,” Jake stands, Jessica and Astrid as well.

“Jericho is asking for you, you can go back and sit with him now if you’d like,” she says. She looks at something on her clipboard, makes a note and looks back up.

“He’s awake?” Jessica asks.

“He’s groggy, slightly confused. He’s exhibiting signs of having been drugged but all his blood work so far has come back clean. He’s asked for Lieutenant Gyllenhaal and Castiel several times since he regained consciousness but the doctor wanted to finish examining him prior to letting anyone into the room.”

“Castiel hasn’t arrived yet,” Jessica says. “But the Lieutenant will go back with you now and we’ll send him once he arrives.”

Jake looks over at her and she makes a gesture with her head and he follows the nurse out of the room.

“Chad,” she says and the young man steps into the room. “Contact base and ask them to send Adam here when they can.”

“Jake’ll be pissed.”

“I’d rather Jake be pissed off then something be wrong with Jericho that we can’t see.”

*

Astrid is trying to make herself small, unnoticeable. Jericho does that sometimes and Jessica wonders if Psi Ops teaches a class on how to do it.

Astrid’s real name is Ellen, she’s just two years younger then Jericho, in some ways she seems a lot older.

Jessica wonders if that’s because Ellen actually had almost 20 years of training where Jericho had only two before he was shuttled off into Time Ops.

“Tell me what happened,” she says, she sees Brendon and Spencer jerk before they realize that she’s not talking to them.

“You should have told us,” Astrid says. She looks and sounds angry. “I thought Jericho was your friend.”

“Jericho’s one of my best friends,” Jessica says, she scowls. “I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for Jericho,” she’d also still be stuck on Prison Planet V443 with Adam, Jake would probably be happy if Adam _was_ still stuck on Prison Planet V443.

“Then you should have told us,” Astrid says again. Jessica just looks at her. “I know Jericho has explained what happens when psychics try to access their own memories without the proper blocks and defenses in place.”

“Why would that… oh,” Jessica bites her lip, she hadn’t even considered… though maybe she’d thought it wouldn’t matter since Castiel had wiped his mind.

“Ryan Ross was attacked in his home by three Psi Ops guards; he was drugged with what was probably a mixture of strong sedative and an equally strong inhibitor. The fact that Jericho was able to stay conscious long enough to get himself out of the memory is a testament of how strong he actually is.”

“Ryan was attacked, you’re sure?” Spencer asks, small voice and when she looks over the four of them are all leaning together, the other one, Hall, is standing stiffly by the door, arms crossed over his chest eyes focused intently on Astrid.

“I’m sorry,” Astrid says, her expression is gentle when she looks over at them, then she focuses her glare on Jessica again

“Apex and Castiel were both there, as well as the three guards,” Astrid says, her voice is cold in a way that Jessica has heard when Jericho is not happy with his orders. “Ross never had a chance.”

“From the beginning,” Jessica says, she narrows her eyes and Astrid narrows hers right back.

“We went into the house,” Astrid says pointedly. “A psychic had attempted to wipe the premises down,” she snorts. “They did a shoddy as hell job.”

“Psi Ops doesn’t normally…”

“I believe and Jericho will most likely concur that they did just enough a wipe to attempt to dampen the biggest events and believed that the house would be either sold off or re-inhabited by others and their presences would wipe anything that remained.”

“It didn’t?”

“No one could stand to…” Spencer says.

“You know that creepy crawly feeling,” Jon says softly. “That one like there’s just something there out of the corner of your eye and you know its there but you can’t actually see it? _That’s_ what it was like trying to even walk into the house after the police cleared it and told us we could go back. None of us lasted even a couple of hours.”

“I believe Castiel trapped memories there, at least three that I witnessed,” Astrid says. “Maybe he thought to take Ross back at some point; maybe he already knew back then who Ross actually _was_. I’m not sure what he thought the point would be though,” she shrugs. “It’s not like there’s anything left for there to be any emotional connection for Jericho to those memories.”

“There were five memories actually, in total,” Jensen says from the doorway, he sounds tired and when Jessica turns she can see that he looks exhausted.

“We, _I_ only saw three,” Astrid says. “Jericho may have witnessed the other two alone after Castiel shoved me out.”

“Which ones did you witness?” Jensen asks, he steps into the room and takes a seat two down from where Jessica is, she doesn’t say anything; he’d normally sit right next to her. She wonders what Castiel has told him.

“One was just of the young man in question sitting on this couch,” Astrid makes a motion with her hands. “He was playing the guitar, it’s the only memory I saw where he was at peace.”

Jensen nods.

“The next one he was having a fight, not physical, it just appeared to be raised voices and waving hands with another young man,” she glances around the room. “I don’t know who.”

“You didn’t push?” Jessica asks.

“We were more concerned with getting to the events surrounding his abduction, if we had pushed further at that memory we would have run the risk of it dampening the one that we were actually interested it. We felt that we could go back to it later if we needed to.”

Jessica nods her understanding; Jericho would have pushed if he’d deemed it important, that he didn’t is answer enough.

“It was probably Alex,” Jon says, Spencer and Brendon look over at him. “They’d been fighting a lot right before…”

“And the last one was his abduction?”

“Three Ops Guards,” Astrid says, she bites her lip, runs her hands over her legs. “He fought back, not that it mattered. They bound his hands behind his back,” her eyes look distant and Jessica looks over at where Ross’ friends are all pale but staring at her, Jensen has his fingers pressed against his lips.

“Apex came in and the drugs that he introduced into Ross’ system are what is causing Jericho’s reaction now, if we’d known,” Astrid manages a glare in her general direction. “It’s why we don’t go into our own memories without suitable protection. Jericho might not remember being Ryan Ross, he might have none of those memories or experiences, but it’s still _him_ , those _were_ at one point _his_ memories, they’re still tied to him even though what Castiel did means that he’ll never be able to have an emotional connection to them again.”

Astrid looks down at her hands, twines her fingers together.

“Apex gave him the shot,” she licks her lips. “That’s when Castiel came in.”

*

Jericho’s not sleeping, he’s faking it pretty well, someone who doesn’t know him would probably be fooled. But Jake has been sharing a bed with him for almost three years (not counting the six months where they weren’t sharing a bed, were barely speaking) he knows what Jericho _actually_ sleeping looks like.

This is Jericho not wanting to talk and feigning sleep to keep from having to do so. Jake could push but he thinks that there’s already going to be way too many people pushing Jericho when they leave this room.

Castiel pushes the door open and Jake scowls in his direction and tightens his grip on Jericho’s fingers minutely.

He can’t call him Ryan, he can’t, not until Jericho says ‘that’s me’ and tells him that it’s okay to do so.

He’s not sure if that day will ever come.

He’s not sure if he wants it to.

Jericho deciding he’s Ryan Ross is just one more thing that could take him away, like Adam.

Castiel looks as he always does, face blank; the tired eyes and lines are new though. Jake wonders if he’d been waiting for this day.

“Yes,” Castiel says and Jake knows his expression goes dark at Castiel touching his mind.

“You are projecting,” Castiel says and Jake very pointedly builds his shields in the way that Jericho had taught them to.

“Jake,” Jericho squeezes his hand, forces him to look over at him and not glare darkly at Castiel. “Can you give us a few minutes,” it’s not a question, or a request. It’s Jericho, saying that he needs a few minutes with Castiel without him there.

“I don’t think…” he starts.

“What’s done is done,” Jericho says softly. “Castiel did his job, as he was instructed to do so, it’s finished, it’s over.”

“I have no further orders pertaining to Ryan Ross,” Castiel says. Jake wonders if he has any orders that pertain to Jericho.

He stands, because they could talk without speaking but he thinks that even though Jericho is saying that Castiel was just doing his job, he still doesn’t want him in his mind at the moment. The memories of Castiel ripping out Ryan Ross’ memories probably still lingers even if the emotions aren’t there.

When he leans down to press his lips against Jericho’s he makes the kiss kind of dirty because he knows that it annoys Castiel on some level that he can’t articulate. The kiss is all tongue and teeth and the curve of Jericho’s lips forming a smile as one of his hands come up to cup the side of his face.

“Call me if you need me,” Jake says, he presses their foreheads together, then kisses him again.

He straightens and glares at Castiel again, silently daring him to try and harm Jericho in any way, Castiel just looks amused which means that even though he’s in uniform, Misha is the one here to speak to Jericho, because when Misha is Castiel he’s all stern or no expressions and his eyes are hard.

He walks across the room and even though he leaves the room he stands there outside the closed door and waits, just in case.

There’s no call from Jericho, there’s no sounds at all from within. They know he’s standing there and he pointedly glares at the door again before stalking down the hallway.

He has to skirt around Hall, who seems to be holding up the doorway, to get into the waiting room and he sees that everyone but Chad is there, he wonders why Jessica hasn’t sent Ross’ friends home; if they’re lingering in the hopes that Jericho will want to see them or they’ll be allowed.

He’s almost sorry that he’s going to have to disappoint them.

“Everything okay?” Jessica asks, she stands smoothly.

“Jericho wanted to talk to Castiel,” Jake says, he makes a face.

“Alone?” Jessica’s brow wrinkles and she looks over at Jensen, he shrugs at her in response.

“After the things that Misha both said and didn’t say, I’m surprised that Jericho wants to even be in the same room with him,” Jensen says, he stands and walks over.

Astrid snorts and they all turn to look at her.

“Castiel was doing his job,” she says, she rolls her eyes at them. “Jericho knows this.”

“He fucked with his mind, took out everything and replaced it with a whole bunch of shit that isn’t real,” Jake snaps.

“And if Castiel hadn’t done that what would have happened? They would have found someone _else_ to do it, someone less experienced and instead of getting Jericho you end up turning Ross into a drooling vegetable who is of no use to anyone and Castiel ends up in solitary going slowly nuts. Of the choices available Castiel made the only one that seemed like it would work,” she snaps back, she doesn’t stand. “I don’t know why _you’re_ angry about this, Castiel doing what he did got you a boyfriend that adores you enough that he gave up Psi Ops.”

Jake takes a deep breath, then another. Somehow she’s right, Jericho knows this, knows all about what happens when you don’t follow the orders that Psi Ops has dictated to the letter.

The first and only time that Jericho had not followed Psi Ops orders to the letter, had ignored them and found an alternative way to get what they wanted, when they’d got him back he’d been quiet and pale and hadn’t been able to sleep in a darkened room for almost three months. Even now they have to leave a light on in the bathroom, though they can now close the door slightly so it’s just a sliver of light and Jake can actually sleep.

Jericho had followed Psi Ops orders to the letter after that. He might have told Jessica or the General what Psi Ops was asking for, but he always did exactly what they told him to do.

“He’s not going to be allowed any more visitors today,” Jake says, he looks over at Ryan’s friends. All sitting there watching them like they’re a fascinating movie or something.

“We can come back though, right?” Jon asks.

“That’s what the passes are for,” Jessica says. She sounds nice when she talks to them, like these people aren’t going to try everything in their power to make Jericho into Ryan Ross and keep him.

“We can have the desk call you when he’s ready for visitors or you can come back in the morning,” she continues.

Spencer nods and there’s a silent exchange between all of them that ends with Hall jerking his head once.

There’s some unspoken connection between them all. He wonders if Ross had been a part of it, or if the shields that had been put in place to protect his mind when he was a kid prevented him from being a part of them like that.

“We’ll come back in the morning,” Hall says, they all four come to their feet, Spencer and Brendon leaning on one another, Jon’s hands shoved into his pocket, Pete seems to be doing something on his phone and Jon reaches out to grab his arm before he walks into a wall.

“Then I guess we’ll see you tomorrow.”

*

Zack brings them back early in the morning, they’re not sure when visiting hours begin but Spencer wants to be there as soon as they can.

If Ryan even deigns to see them.

He could just refuse, could play the ‘don’t know them’ card because he’s not sure what memories that Castiel had left in the room but Spencer had never been to Ryan’s new house prior to Ryan’s disappearance. If the memories are all of events that occurred in the house neither he or Brendon or Pete or Zack are going to be there.

“He knew us,” Brendon says. Reminds him of that flash of recognition in Jericho’s eyes before he’d crumpled in Jake’s arms.

They give their names to the desk and they hand over badges easy enough, no fussing or telling them they’re not allowed and they follow the circuitous route back to the room they’d been waiting in the day before.

No one else is there and he feels a twinge of something, anger or something of its ilk that maybe they’re all in seeing Ryan already.

Pete is doing something on his phone; Jon has to keep tugging on his elbow to keep him moving.

They all turn at the sound of feet in the hallway and Jessica appears in the doorway, Chad right behind her, both in uniform.

“Good morning,” she says, she doesn’t seem surprised to see them there.

“We thought…” Spencer says and Jessica smiles kindly at him.

“Jericho’s not being allowed actual visitors yet.”

Spencer nods, and bites his tongue to keep from asking if Jake had been allowed back in his room. He knows the answer is probably yes, Jake is his boyfriend and these others had been willing to stand as a wall between him and them.

They are his family in all ways but name now.

“We wouldn’t keep you away,” Jessica says, she steps through the doorway into the room though she doesn’t sit down. “Not unless Jericho asks us to.”

Spencer nods, because that might still happen.

“Captain Alba,” a nurse appears in the doorway.

“Is he awake?” Jessica’s shoulders straighten and Chad is standing at attention on the other side of the doorway.

“Yes ma’am, I’m supposed to direct you back to the room,” the nurse smiles at her.

“Is there anyone in with him now?”

“Lieutenant Gyllenhaal went to get dressed and get a uniform for him, Lord Lambert and his companion are still in with him,” the nurse says.

“Thank you, we’ll be along momentarily,” Jessica says, the nurse blinks at her then turns on her heel and leaves the room.

“There’s things you should know about your friend,” she says, eyes watching the retreating nurses back. “But we don’t have the time at the moment because we may or may not have a mission coming down the pipes.”

“Is he okay?” Jon asks. There’s a note of worry in his voice.

“He’s fine, he’s just…” Jessica bites her lip. “He’s just a bit more then just Jericho of Psi Ops and Ryan Ross of here…” she shakes her head.

They walk down the hallway and Jessica and Chad lead the way, the nurses and one doctor they pass going to the wall as they go by.

They pause outside a door and the knowledge that Jessica and Chad knew exactly where to go without a nurse leading the way burns slightly, it means that they’ve been to this room before. Probably after they sent them away the night before.

She pushes the door open and they enter, Zack holding back by the door.

There’s a tall man sitting at the end of the bed, black hair and muscles and sort of insanely pretty in the way that Gerard Way is. Leaning into his side is a shorter, leaner young man with a head of crazy hair.

“Lord Lambert, Tommy,” Jessica bows slightly, Spencer looks from her to the two young men in question.

“Jessica,” Lord Lambert sounds amused and throws a grin in Ryan’s direction. Ryan is propped up in the bed, pillows behind him, one knee drawn up to his chest. He looks well rested, Spencer wraps his arms around himself when Ryan’s eyes glance over all of them and there’s no sign of whatever recognition he’d had the day prior.

“Jake went to get a uniform, apparently my other one didn’t make it to the room with me,” Ryan says.

“The nurses think you’re pretty, someone has it cut up and fragments shoved under a pillow to help them have good dreams of you I’m sure,” Lord Lambert says with a grin, there’s a little bit of leer there and they’re obviously friends because Ryan just looks exasperated and sort of fond.

“Adam,” Ryan says, he’s rolling his eyes as he looks over at him, Spencer bites his lip, it looks like they’re having a silent conversation, Ryan and he used to be able to do that once upon a time.

There’s noise in the doorway and Spencer turns his head to see Jake there, the others shuffle aside, allowing him to walk in. He has what looks like a uniform hanging over one arm.

He lays it over the back of a chair and moves to stand at the end of the bed. He glares pointedly at where Adam’s hand has wrapped around Ryan’s ankle and Adam just smirks at him.

“What do we know?” Ryan asks, he stares right at Jake and something in his face relaxes when Jake sits on the bed beside him.

“Castiel and Jensen are going through the distress call right now,” Jake says. “I stopped there and listened to a bit of it and Jen is right, it does sound like your kids. They’re requesting assistance from Jericho and the CJ’s.”

Ryan’s brow wrinkles and he draws his lower lip between his teeth, he looks at Adam and Adam looks back then nods.

“I need to get dressed, Tommy can stay,” Ryan says, his look dismisses the rest of them and Spencer feels his spine stiffen and he wants to say ‘no, you don’t get to throw us out of the room’, even though they’re not really in the room and yes he definitely can.

*

He’s alone in his room, it had taken some talking to get that done, Jake is being overly solicitous and he doesn’t see that ending any time soon.

He should be prepping for the mission to P749; instead he stands in front of the mirror in the bathroom and stares at himself. This was something he used to do before he went to Time Op’s. When he had just the vaguest recollection of who he was.

He’d been told then that there’d been an accident, a mission gone haywire and his memories being wiped out had been a direct result of him being in the wrong place at the wrong time. When he’d first woken after that mission that he knows now he never went on he’d been strapped down to a hospital bed.

He looks in the mirror now and he’s not sure who he’s supposed to be seeing.

Jericho.

Ryan Ross.

Or some amalgamation of the two.

He presses fingers to the mirror and they touch his reflections cheek.

Castiel hadn’t completely razed his mind, no matter what he’s told Jake or Jensen or any of the others. What Castiel had done was clear a path and put up a bunch of smoke and mirrors to hide the path and the trunk and lock at the end of it. He’s found the trunk, and there’s four keys in the forms of people that will open the lock.

Smith had been one, Castiel himself another.

He doesn’t know who the other two are. He’s sure they’re part of whatever sad, miserable life Ross had been leading.

Ryan Ross had been sad, lonely. And he knows that whatever may have happened after, at the time of his disappearance four of those five people that have been showing up at the hospital could not be called friends.

Now he needs to make a decision, does he try and find the other two keys, or does he let it go.

They’re his memories, and he wants them if for no other reason then because they’re _his_ and they should never have been taken away.

He just doesn’t know if that’s a good enough reason.

*

Spencer feels sort of defeated when he walks into his house, Ryan had just left, had just come out of the hospital room with Tommy right beside him touching his arm and he’d completely ignored them.

Hadn’t acknowledged them in any way except for a brief nod.

He hadn’t realized how much he’d been banking on that brief flare of recognition blooming into actual _knowing_ until there’d been absolutely nothing in his eyes again when he looked at them.

“Were you ever planning on telling us?” he hears Greenwald snarl before he sees him.

They’re in the living room, sitting side by side on the couch and Z looks calm but Greenwald is infuriated.

“No,” Spencer says, he’s honest about that fact. He might have handed over Alex and Z’s names, that didn’t mean that he had any intention of letting them know that they could pop over there and see Ryan.

“You’re a fucking bastard,” Alex snaps. “I have more rights to be there then you do.”

“Rights?!” Spencer says incredulously, he can feel Brendon’s hand on his arm and he realizes that his hands are clenched into fists and he’d started forward like he was going to throw a punch. “You _gave_ _up_ on him, you wrote him off and we’re the ones that kept looking.”

“We want to see him,” Z says, she has her hand on Alex’s arm and her voice is soft. There’s steel in her eyes though, if he doesn’t give her the answers or the permissions that she thinks he has to give there will be hell to pay.

“He doesn’t know us,” Spencer says. “He won’t know you either.” He deflates suddenly, feeling the weight of the day, of these last few weeks of knowing and being able to do nothing about that knowledge settling itself on his shoulders.

“What do you mean?” Alex asks slowly, Z is staring at him with wide eyes and when Spencer really looks at him he can see that Alex looks pale and worn.

“There was…” Spencer closes his eyes, rubs a hand over his face. “When they took him, the people that took him, they did something…”

“They called it razing his mind,” Jon says slowly, softly, Spencer glances over and he’s collapsed into a chair, Pete is sitting on the arm, Zack is by the window with a phone to his ear.

Neither Alex or Z needs any explanation as to what razing means. They’re both sheet white and there are tears glistening in Z’s eyes.

“And you left him there, with them?” Alex sounds infuriated.

“The people that he’s with now, they’re not the ones that took him,” Brendon says. “Well except for Castiel, but I don’t think Ryan, Jericho is holding him accountable for doing what he was ordered to do.”

*

They’re not expecting anyone; Spencer has been calling every day, before they go into the studio and after they come back out.

The woman that he talks to is always very friendly, ‘we’ll contact you as soon as Team One returns’ she says. Every time, he would think she was actually a recording and that he wasn’t talking to a real person if the inflection of her voice didn’t change as the days wore on.

Spencer doesn’t really believe her; they’ll contact them when Ryan says its okay for them to contact them.

Alex and Z are permanent fixtures; Alex had even given him money that morning for groceries because they’re all but living there at the moment while they wait for Ryan to come back.

Alex doesn’t believe him, much the same way that Spencer doesn’t believe the woman at Time Ops.

Everyone is in the kitchen, the doorbell rings twice in quick succession and Spencer does a quick head count.

The only one missing is Ryan, as always and when he’d called Time Ops that morning his team had not returned yet.

It’s why he’s not rushing to the door to answer it, standing outside will be a door to door salesman or someone else that he doesn’t want to see.

Except when he opens the door Jake is standing there, he’s alone, in uniform and he has an expression on his face that says he’s bracing himself for a conversation that he really doesn’t want to have.

“Is Ryan okay?”

He can’t help himself, he blurts it out and there must be some extreme amount of panic showing on his face because Jake’s face relaxes a bit.

“Jericho’s fine,” he says, his voice has a soothing quality to it, though he sounds mostly resigned; like he’s used to dealing with panicked former best friends of his boyfriend.

“Spencer, breakfast is ready,” Brendon’s voice precedes him around the corner, he stops dead in his track and looks past Jake, looking for Ryan most likely.

“I need to talk to you guys,” Jake says, there’s a hint of… something in his voice that Spencer can’t decipher. He’s pretty sure that he, _they,_ are not going to like what Jake is there to tell them.

*

Alex is poking at his food, using the tongs of his fork to move it around his plate, hiding bits of his pancakes in his hashbrowns and mashing them all together.

He hears voices and he looks up when Brendon walks back in, he looks pale and tired and his lips are drawn into a thin line. It’s a look that’s mirrored on pretty much everyone’s face, except maybe Zack. Alex thinks that Zack expects things like this from Ryan.

Which is unfair, because Zack hadn’t even been around Ryan for six months prior to his disappearance; he’d stopped drinking and he hadn’t been doing any drugs; of course he’d also broken things off with Z and had mostly stopped speaking to everyone and towards the very end he’d barely been writing. Alex had been trying to brace himself for the day that he came over and found Ryan dead in his bathtub.

Spencer comes around the corner and right behind him is a young man that Alex recognizes from the magazines that did all the introduction stories when Time Ops made their grand appearance.

This is Jake, and from what he remembers of the articles Jake is on the same team as Ryan.

“Is Ryan okay?” he stands up, fork making a cluttering noise when it hits the edge of his plate and settles on the table.

“Jericho’s fine,” Jake says, he’s rolling his eyes a little bit. “At least he was this morning at check in, you all are making me want to call base and have them check in again.”

“If Ryan’s fine, why are you here?” Jon asks, he’s leaning against the stove, hands braced behind him.

Jake sighs, runs a hand over his head.

“Jess said that I should just wait and see how things played out, that he could always change his mind,” Jake makes a face. “But see I know Jericho a little better then she does; and he’s going to do things as he sees fit.”

Alex gets a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach; Jon can actually cook so he knows it’s not the food.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks, Jake looks over at him, seemingly noticing that there’s people sitting there that have not met him before.

“Alex Greenwald and Elizabeth Berg,” Spencer says quietly, he’s holding onto the edge of a counter by the door, knuckles white.

“The other two people on your list,” Jake says, nodding once.

“Jericho has decided that once he returns from P749 that he will be withdrawing your access to him through Time Ops,” Jake says.

Spencer closes his eyes and sways and Alex sits down hard in his chair.

“I’m sorry,” Jake says, he sounds apologetic, Alex gives him that, when he looks at him he can see that he sort of looks sad on their behalf. He gets to still see Ryan so Alex doesn’t really want his sympathy.

Z lays a hand on his arm and he puts a hand over the top of it, squeezing her fingers.

“I tried to change his mind, to tell him to give it a little more time, but he doesn’t see the point,” Jake says softly.

“Will you…” Spencer starts, Jake’s phone cuts him off, ringing sharp and loud in the silence of the kitchen.

“Sorry,” Jake makes a face, pulls his phone out of a pocket and looks at the screen, “hey Jess.”

He’s quiet and they can’t hear what’s being said on the other end but Alex doesn’t think that it’s good news with the way that Jake’s face is slowly draining of color.

“Call Astrid,” he says, his voice is hollow, “Call Astrid and Adam and…” he runs a hand over his face. “I’m on my way back; I’ll be there in twenty.”

He cuts the phone off and he looks blankly at the wall directly behind Alex’s head.

“What’s happened?” Zack asks, everybody else seems to be staring at Jake waiting for assurances that whatever would cause Jake to look like his world is ending hasn’t actually happened.

Jake licks his lips, takes a slow, deep breath and releases it.

“Psi Ops, maybe, possibly with the help of Sec Ops made a try for Jericho and Castiel on P749, there were apparently several explosions, they’re both missing.”

*

Operations is in complete chaos, voices yelling, Jake feels like it’s all happening from very far away and he’s trying the deep breathing thing that Jensen swears by but he doesn’t think it’s working for him.

He’s still panicked; his heart is still pounding like it’s trying to come out of his chest.

Ross’ friends are behind him, he couldn’t stop them and they have passes, though not to be where they are.

They’re with him though, he thinks he signed papers at the front desk when they got their badges and they’re his responsibility.

“What do we know?” he asks quietly. Jessica is beside him in a second, she looks as frazzled as he feels.

“Jensen got a distress call through before Sec Ops locked the gate down. We’re able to get intermittent signals from wherever he’s transmitting from; if Astrid can link up with him when he’s transmitting we might be able to break the lock Sec Ops has on the gate and either get them through or get a rescue team through to help them,” Jessica says in a rushed breath of air.

Jake can see Astrid standing at the top of the stairs leading down into the gate area. There’s a flurry of activity going on down there, he can see Sean’s team standing in formation, waiting.

“I want…” he starts and General Clooney is right there.

“No, you both are grounded, let Team 2 handle this,” he says, his voice brooks no arguments and his eyes are hard.

“Astrid can’t open a gate,” Jake says, “she’s not…”

“If Astrid can connect with Jensen she can leapfrog him to Jericho, she should be able to push a gate open using Jericho on the other side,” there’s no mention of Jericho and Castiel possibly having already been shuttled through a different gate.

“Jensen say’s they’re still on planet,” Jessica says, like she’s reading his mind. He knows she can’t, he still puts up shields anyway. “Last transmission he said that he was still connected to Castiel and Castiel was still with Jericho…”

“Why is Jericho not connected to Jensen too?” Jake asks, it’s a valid question; team bond trumps whatever bond that Jensen and Castiel have every time, she had to have been expecting it. Jessica’s eyes flutter past him to the group standing silent behind him. He can feel their worry and fear like an oppressive weight and he’s not even a touch psychic.

“Jensen said…” Jessica looks around the room, like she wants someone else to say these words, no one steps up and she takes a breath, “Jericho’s down, Jensen said that he went down trying to protect one of his kids and Castiel managed to get to them before they got cut off from him. He’s trying to get through to them, him and some of the other survivors are trying to dig them out.”

Behind him he can hear Smith making a high pitched keening sound, it’s quiet, he’s trying to muffle it or stop it or something. Jake doesn’t know.

“Was he connected to the kids?” he asks quietly, softly. The people of P749 operate as a hive mind, when they’re there, Jericho takes point because he can connect to his kids and through his kids to the hive mind.

Jessica looks at him, bites at her lower lip.

“Jessica, was he connected to the kids?”

“Yes,” she says softly. “You know he was.”

His vision whites out, he staggers back and he can feel hands on his back and arms. Chad is right beside him and Jessica is in front of him coaxing him to put his head down.

“Breathe,” she says softly, “just breathe, there you go.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

He feels soft hands on his arm and the back of his neck, Jessica is still kneeling in front of him, he looks to his left and Ross’ friend Z is there. Her face is wet, tears leaking from her eyes.

“We’re going to find them,” Jessica promises. “We’re going to find them and we’re going to get them back.”

“You can’t know that,” Smith says from behind him.

“Yes, I can. He didn’t give up on me when I was on V443, I won’t give up on him now.”

“Astrid’s got a connection,” Chad says softly, Jake twists, coming to his knees and he can see Astrid there, looking young and scared, there’s a faint tremor when she lifts her hand and he can see one of Jericho’s extra gate gauntlets’ looped securely to her arm.

She’s focusing intently, he comes to his feet and he’s got Chad right beside him when he walks to the door, if she can’t connect to Jericho through Jensen that means Jericho’s dead.

He waits, holds his breath and waits, staring at the closed gate and he hopes. A bead of sweat trickles down the side of Astrid’s face and she makes a sound, behind him he can hear Jessica chanting, ‘come on, come on,’ over and over again.

He closes his eyes and bows his head only to raise it, eyes flying open at the ‘oh my fucking god’ murmurs from behind him.

There’s a gate opening, small and there, Astrid is staring at it, he knows that she’s pushing all the power she can leech from Jericho to try and force it open more, they need it wider to get a rescue team through.

“Get Team 2 ready,” he hears General Clooney order.

“No,” Astrid whispers, Jake steps through the door, takes two steps so he’s standing beside her.

“Astrid?” he says softly.

“No, those that are able are going to come through,” she whispers, voice straining.

“They’re coming through?” he asks and she nods once.

“Astrid says that the survivors are coming through,” he shouts, he rushes down the steps and he knows that the others are right behind him. Jessica and Chad and those friends of Ross’.

There’s a white box perimeter and he toes the lines, waits until he sees the hazy silhouettes coming through, he recognizes some of the elders, a group of kids; there are two kids that they consider Jericho’s, the boy comes through the gate and doesn’t stop until he’s right in front of him, wrapping arms tight around him, sobbing against him. The girl must have been the one that went down with Jericho and Castiel.

Jake puts his arms around his shoulders, holds onto him.

The gate is starting to fuzz, making that wavering motion that means that Astrid (and Jericho) aren’t going to be able to hold it much longer.

The survivors start coming through faster, at a run now and they’re pulled out of the box and to the sidelines to make room; Jensen and Castiel are the last through, Jericho hanging limp between them, the other one of his kids clinging to Castiel’s coat with all her might. They all look like hell but Jericho is really the only one that Jake sees, he’s got blood everywhere, streaked down the side of his face, the front of his uniform.

The gate wobbles and snaps closed as they make it through and Jensen and Castiel manage two more staggering steps before they hit their knees, Jericho going down flat on the ground between them.

Jake rushes them, the gate is closed, no need to observe gate area protocol and he’s on his knees, Smith and the new one, Alex across from him.

“Jericho,” he says, he rolls him over, puts his hands on either side of his head, kisses him, presses their foreheads together. “Jericho, come on baby.”

He feels arms pulling on him, moving him bodily out of the way.

“Lieutenant, you need to give the med team room to work,” he hears. Jericho’s kids latch onto him, he’s something familiar to them in this unfamiliar place and the sea of unfamiliar faces surrounding them.

“On three,” he hears and he can see them lifting Jericho onto a stretcher, his head lolling back and forth, eyes shut. He can see his chest moving, up and down, slowly, he’s still alive.

Jensen is pushing hands away; Castiel has an arm around him, tugging him closer.

They’re both watching them wheel Jericho out of the room. Castiel looks…

“What did they do?” Jake asks, the kids’ arms tighten around him. “Castiel, what did they do?!”

Castiel doesn’t answer, just looks at him and his eyes are wide and startled and unseeing.

“He’s not there,” the girl sobs against his shoulder, “they took him out and he’s not there.”

The kids catch him when his knees give out this time.

*

“I didn’t see this,” Castiel says. He looks shell shocked, the doctors are calling it psychic shock and trying to force him into a room, he’s refusing for now. Spencer’s pretty sure that at some point soon they’ll pull out the big guns, namely Jensen.

“Castiel…” Jensen starts.

“Jericho and I knew that Psi Ops was pushing to reclaim us, especially since Adam had been found and with the three of us we were powerful enough to form a stable Triad and…”

“You knew that Psi Ops was making a push?” Jake asks.

Castiel blinks at him, “of course, Jericho and I along with Adam had spoken at length about how we were going to deal with it.”

“And you didn’t think to _mention_ this to any of us at some point?” Jessica asks, she’s leaning forward, hands clasped together.

“We were handling it; we thought it best to deal with the situation in our own way as it did not directly affect any of you.”

“If we’d known that Psi Ops was making a push we would have grounded both of you,” the General says quietly. “Sending you both out there, even to a planet like P749 which is known as friendly to us would have been deemed unsafe.”

“We were handling it,” Castiel says again.

“Did they raze his mind again?” Jessica asks.

“I don’t know,” Castiel murmurs, he rubs at his head and winces.

“You don’t know? You were _there_ ,” Jake sounds pissed and tired and those kids are still leaning into his side. They haven’t moved and Spencer wants to ask how Ryan has two kids that are that age, he’s pretty sure they’re not _actually_ his, but…

“Not for that,” Jensen says. “Castiel and I were meeting with some of the elders, talking about the last two ceremonies. Dajil came running for us, scared, we went back with some of the guards and Jericho was there, he didn’t,” Jensen shakes his head.

“We didn’t realize that anything was wrong at first,” Castiel states. “I don’t connect with him like I would usually when we’re on P749, the hive mind is closed to me and if I tried to make a connection with him without direct consent of the elders they would close _their_ minds to him. After all the work it took for him to be able to…”

“I understand,” Jessica holds up a hand. “So it was already done by that point? Whatever Psi Ops did?”

The girl turns her head away from Jake’s shoulder, her eyes are distant, Spencer wonders if she’s still trying to connect to Ryan in some way.

“They were looking for something,” she says softly, voice rough and unused. Jake puts a hand on her head, cupping his palm over the back of it.

“They were looking for something?” Castiel leans forward, eyes intent.

“A box,” she says, “it was the only thing they couldn’t get to,” she looks at Castiel, “it was still locked, he was able to keep it, to protect it because it’s still locked.”

“He hadn’t found all the keys,” Castiel says.

“What are you talking about?” Jake asks. “What box, what locks?”

Castiel takes a deep breath and then stands, hands at his side.

“I didn’t raze Jericho’s mind, not the way that they intended for me to. I took all those memories that Ryan Ross had and I placed them in a locked box that could only be opened if he found four keys and met a very specific set of conditions.”

“Wait a minute, Ryan’s still in there?” Spencer asks, there’s a fluttering in his chest that feels a little bit like hope.

“In the locked box, yes,” Castiel says. “There are four keys, I made myself one and three people from Mr. Ross’ past the others, there were conditions on opening the box as well. He had to know that it was there, what it contained and what would happen if he opened it, only then could he use the keys to open it. If he found the box and found the keys but didn’t know what was inside it wouldn’t open, if he found the keys and didn’t know the box was there it wouldn’t open.”

“You lied to Psi Ops,” Jensen says, there’s the sound of laughter in his voice.

“I told you that I didn’t agree with the way that Psi Ops was operating,” Castiel turns, he looks baffled as to why Jensen is so amused.

“Yeah but I thought what they had you do to Ross was the catalyst for that, not just one of the ways that you thumbed your nose at them without them knowing you were doing so.”

Castiel’s brow wrinkles and he shakes his head.

“Mr. Ross was the reason that I lost faith in Psi Ops,” he taps his forehead with one finger. “Foresight you know.”

*

There’s nothing there, Astrid keeps pushing, she needs to know if there’s any possible way and there’s nothing.

Just that box, two locks open, two more to go.

No bit of Jericho remains; this is what she’d warned them of back in the beginning, just a few weeks ago.

If Castiel hadn’t been the one that did what he did, this is what they would have ended up with.

Ryan Ross lying in a bed with no memories, with nothing remaining of himself.

She straightens, brushes the tears that well up in her eyes away. Not the time, not the place.

She strokes the fingers of one hand across his forehead, “We’ll protect them,” she whispers. “To the best of our abilities.”

*

The group seems to be arguing amongst themselves, Castiel is the only one that turns when she walks out of Jericho’s room.

“Can you force the locks?” she asks and Castiel blinks at her.

“Of course, I made them, I can open them.”

“Why would we force the locks?” Jessica asks, she stands as well; Astrid looks over at where Jake has Jericho’s kids huddled up against him. His face is white, there is knowledge in his eyes, he knows what she wants to do.

“He’ll need your consent,” she says softly. “Jericho trusted you, you are his medical proxy and you can sign the order for Castiel to do this.”

Jake leans his head back against the wall, eyes closing; the girl, Astrid thinks her name is Sari, begins to sob.

“What are you doing? What exactly are we talking about here?” Spencer Smith stands as well, there are a lot of people standing and Astrid wishes that she had the time to explain, more then that she wants them all to sit down because they’re tall and slightly overbearing.

“She wants to prove to Psi Ops and Sec Ops that the threat of a stable Triad has been removed by opening the lock box that contains Ryan Ross’ memories and putting them back in place,” Jake says, his voice is dull, quiet, she feels sympathy for him but if this works…

“What about Jericho?” Brendon asks. “I mean… we want Ryan back, of course, but Jericho…?”

“There is no Jericho anymore,” Astrid states, “Psi Ops had a psychic not unlike Castiel remove the memories of Jericho, they would have removed the lock box as well if they’d been able. The fact that it remains leaves us only with this option as our only recourse.”

“We’ll need Adam as well,” Castiel says. “To make this complete we need to lock down his powers, make him as much of a non-threat as possible.”

“Can you even _do_ that?” Jensen asks, Castiel smiles a small thin smile at him. Astrid wonders if Jensen or any of the others has even realized that if Castiel and Adam do this that they will not be able to remain here.

“I’m an old hand at this, it’s a lock box, with keys, as long as he doesn’t come into contact with a psychic that can tell him that there’s a box there and what it contains, as long as no one here tells him that there’s something there to look for… Yes we can do that.”

*

He has a headache when he opens his eyes, his head aches, his eyes ache.

 _Was I in an accident_ , he wonders.

“Just a little one,” someone responds and he blinks, turns his head to the left and there’s a young man that he doesn’t recognize sitting there. He’s in a crisp black uniform, he’s attractive.

“Do I know you?” he asks, he feels like he should, but his mind is hazy and foggy. He looks around the room and can see that he’s in a hospital, the white walls and the beeping machines to his right really give it away.

“No,” the young man says, he looks sad and Ryan is pretty sure that he’s lying to him. That he does know him, somehow, someway, he’s too tired to figure it out.

“No, you were just, you were in here alone and…” the young man shrugs and pushes himself up from the chair.

“I should…”

“My name’s Ryan,” he says, he looks at him expectantly, waits. “This is the point where you tell me your name in response.”

“Jake, my name is Jake.”

They look at each other and he knows he knows him, he’s wracking his brain trying to push through the fog and figure out how, it’ll come to him, it always does.

The door opens and Spencer is standing there, he looks older and not pissed off at him and Ryan blinks trying to figure out what’s going on, behind him Alex and Z are pushing past and Brendon trailing behind them into the room.

“I should let you get back to resting,” Jake says, he touches Ryan’s arm.

“It was nice to meet you,” Ryan says and Jake smiles a wan, sad smile.

“You too.”

*

The café is a little out of the way place, he manages to get there on his own by lying to everyone.

He’d kind of expected Alex and Z to be all over protective and not letting him out of their sight, but Spencer and Brendon and _Zack_ of all people had come out of left field.

He orders his coffee and a piece of the blueberry crumble cake and takes them to a table in the back corner, hidden from view of the door just in case he was followed.

He’s slightly out of practice.

He pulls his phone out of his pocket and thumbs it off, he kind of doesn’t put it past any one of them to have a child safety feature on his phone so they can determine where he is at all times he’s not with one of them.

Explaining to them that he is not a child doesn’t seem to work anymore.

“You look well,” he hears and he leans back in his chair and looks up. There’s a man standing there, long coat on even though it’s almost 90 out. He smiles and waits, the man waits too.

Ryan knows what he’s waiting for, he’s known since about three days after he woke up in a hospital dazed and in pain and missing over 4 years of his life.

“Hello Castiel.”

“Jericho,” Castiel is looking at him impassively.

Ryan nods his head at the chair sitting opposite him.

“They’re okay,” Castiel says, he sits in the chair opposite him, placing a box on the table between them. Ryan’s pretty sure that he knows what’s inside and he smiles a little.

“Where do we stand?” he asks.

“Things are proceeding as we had foreseen, Adam has his end in place and indicates that he’s ready when we are.”

Ryan reaches out and pulls the box towards him; he pulls the top off and touches his finger to the gauntlet inside.

“How are your friends?” Castiel asks, his tone is awkward, like he’s sure this is question he should be asking but is still unsure as to why.

“They’re fine,” Ryan smiles. “They’re, they don’t let me out of their sight, I’m pretty sure that Zack has bugged my phone and that every single one of them has somehow moved in with me over the course of the last few months.”

“You’re happy,” Misha notes, Ryan knows that it’s Misha because Castiel wouldn’t care and he knows that Misha’s goal, Adam’s goal, _their_ goal is to be happy, to have lives, to be able to _live_. “We don’t have to proceed as planned.”

Ryan looks at him. “I’m in love with Jake.”

Castiel nods once. “Team four will be waiting for you at the coordinates we agreed upon, will you be able to get away?”

“It’ll be a little more time consuming, this time I’m not just trying to get around Zack but everyone else as well. I’ll manage.”

Castiel stands. “Good luck,” he says.

Ryan looks down, tears a piece of his cake apart and when he looks up Castiel is gone, he picks up his cup, takes a sip. Then stands, pulls the box under his arm and starts to walk.

He has three days to come up with a plan that will get him four days without interference or being missed by the others. That’s going to take some finessing, some outright lying.

Jake is waiting at the other end, he doesn’t know that he’s waiting though and Ryan’s goal is to finish this, to be back home before Jake has a chance to move on.

He’s got motivation.

Now he just needs to make some plans.


End file.
